The archaeology of Igbo-Ukwu is the study of an archaeological site located in a town of the same name: Igbo-Ukwu, an Igbo town in Anambra State in southeastern Nigeria. The Igbo-Ukwu culture, dating back to 850 AD, is the earliest-known example of bronze casting in the region.
In 1938, while digging a cistern on his property, Nigerian farmer Isaiah Anozie unearthed dozens of intricate objects made of cast bronze. As it turns out, Isaiah’s family farm sat atop the remains of an ancient ceremonial center that was home to a society that existed over a millennium ago. Over the next two decades, hundreds more bronze objects would be discovered, along with thousands of glass beads, numerous pieces of ceremonial pottery, and even the remains of an elite burial.
Named for the village in which the remains were discovered, the ancient culture of Igbo-Ukwu (meaning “Great Igbo”) left behind a rich record of visual art with impeccable craftsmanship and complex symbolism. These archaeological sites were evidence of an advanced and wealthy society that flourished in the Lower Niger region of modern-day Nigeria during the 9th to 11th centuries C.E.
In 1959, British and Nigerian government officials negotiated the first professional archaeological excavation of the site that was uncovered by Isaiah Anozie. British archaeologist Thurston Shaw spent five years in Nigeria overseeing the excavation.
Following a 2014 memorial for Shaw, Igwe of Igbo-Ukwu Martin E. Ezeh granted permission for new fieldwork at Igbo-Ukwu. New plans for exploration of the site were coordinated by Shaw's wife, Pamela Jane Smith Shaw, in 2019 and 2021. Fieldwork on this project aimed at expanding the temporal and spatial record of the ancient settlement.
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As a result of these findings, three excavation areas at Igbo-Ukwu were opened in 1959 and 1964 by Charles Thurstan Shaw: Igbo Richard, Igbo Isaiah, and Igbo Jonah.
Each site offers clues about the ancient society of Igbo-Ukwu. In Igbo Isaiah, Shaw found a repository of elaborate cast bronze objects that included ceremonial vessels, pot stands, jewelry, and various ornamental regalia. Igbo Richard contained evidence of an elite burial for an individual of great political, religious, or social status (or perhaps all three). Accompanying the human remains in Igbo Richard, Shaw found over 100,000 glass beads, preserved textiles, elephant tusks, and cast bronze regalia. Finally, Igbo Jonah, which possibly served as a disposal pit, preserved a number of ceramic shards, additional bronze objects, and more glass beads.
Igbo Ukwu Bronzes: Africa’s Ancient Mystery
The Nri-Igbo Connection
The archaeological sites in southeastern Nigeria are associated with the Nri-Igbo. In fact, some scholars have postulated that clues about the meaning of the Igbo-Ukwu objects might lie with the Nri people who reside in the Lower Niger region of Nigeria and are likely ancestors of the people who lived in ancient Igbo-Ukwu.
The traditions of one particular Igbo subgroup; the Nri, posit them as reputed ritual specialists who developed a hegemonic state headed by hereditary sacred rulers who conferred titles on prominent individuals. The Nri's mythical founder, Eri, is said to have descended from the sky to the Anambra River prior to the domestication of the igbo staples; yams and coco-yams, and with the help of autochthonous cultivators, traders and blacksmiths, developed farming, iron technology, and controlled markets that enabled the establishment of a fairly centralized state between the 9th and 10th century.
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Nri socio-political structure is organized around the Eze-Nri, an individual with both political and spiritual power. Central to the Nri social organization is the Obu temple, which is kept for ritual and ceremonial purposes in connection to the title system, and is often located within the main compound of a title-holder's household for the collection of prestige items. Upon his death, the Eze was buried, often in a seated posture, with prestigious grave goods and his coronation clothes.
The institution of the Eze Nri, its title-taking system and many aspects of the Nri culture including the Obu temples present us with the best evidence for explaining the objects discovered. By drawing parallels with their occurrence in extant traditions, it can be surmised that they represent a concentration of wealth accruing to the institution of the Eze Nri, and the objects could be regarded as material metaphors which symbolically represented the office's power.
The Igbo concept of political-religious power is structured by membership in associations based on an elaborate title-system and patrilineal lineages called umunna, and is thus highly diffused. Within the cultural area of the Nri subgroup, the most powerful title-holder is the Eze office, ie Eze-Nri a dignitary with religious and political authority, who was subordinated by other title-holders (Ozo) who were involved in the Nri governance system.
Unique Artistry and Techniques
Excavations revealed more than 700 high quality artifacts of copper, bronze and iron, as well as about 165,000 glass, carnelian and stone beads, pottery, textiles and ivory beads, cups, and horns.
The metal workers of ancient Igbo-Ukwu were not aware of commonly used techniques such as wire making, soldering or riveting which suggests an independent development and long isolation of their metal working tradition. It is therefore perplexing that they were able to create objects with such fine surface detail that they depict, for example small insects which seem to have landed on the surface. Though these appear to have been riveted or soldered on to the artifacts, they were actually cast in one piece.
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The Grove Encyclopedia of Materials and Techniques in Art describes them as being "among the most inventive and technically accomplished bronzes ever made".
Although the lost wax casting process was used to produce the bronzes, latex was probably used in Igbo-Ukwu instead of beeswax which would explain how the artists were able to produce such fine and filigrann surface detail.
The composition of the metal alloys used in the production of the bronze is unique, with an unusually high silver content and is distinct from alloys used in Europe, the Mediterranean or other African bronze centers.
About 85-90% of the metal ore used to produce the bronze originated from old mines in Abakiliki about 100 kilometers from Igbo-Ukwu. This finding is corroborated by recent lead isotope and silver content analysis of fragmented metal objects. A small percentage of ores are thought to have originated from a secondary source. However, an exact location has not been confirmed.
Map of the Igbo-Ukwu excavation site
Skeuomorphism in Igbo Ukwu Art
Igbo Ukwu artworks predominantly feature skeuomorphism; the rendering of the innate features of one material form in another. It was manifest in several ways and likely served a twofold purpose that; indicated the power of the object’s owners to transform the meaning and appearance of both every day and prestige items at will, and to produce the symbols of power and authority in more durable forms.
Skeuomorphism was evident in several items of bronze work. The most notable of these was the bronze roped vessel that was skeuomorphic of a pear-shaped clay waterpot on its stand with a rope net around it to help support and carry it. Other skeuomorphic works are the bronze calabashes and gourds, that were modeled after common calabashes, with intricate decorations and quatrefoil patterns on the surfaces to mimic the patterns of nets surrounding common calabashes, they also include wire handles and fittings that imitate copper handles and fittings of real calabashes.
Vase with Rope from Igbo-Ukwu
Symbolism and Power
Among the Igbo Ukwu corpus were objects that symbolized political and religious authority. These objects include staff ornaments, that are some of the most richly decorated and off all the Igbo Ukwu castings; with granulated surfaces encrusted with glass beads, their sides have spirally twisted bosses, coils of quatrefoils, and geometric patterns of lozenges. Depicted on the staffs are figures of beetles or columns of mudfish and monkey-head figures, all of which are surmounted by a figure of a snake with an egg in its mouth, or figures of birds with grasshoppers/locusts in their mouth.
Other objects of power were three types of bronze bells, and large fan-holders made of pure copper with a semi-circular plate decorated with puncate lines and interlace patterns resembling quatrefoils, the copper fan-holders were also punched with holes for fixing feathers.
Copper spiral snake ornament from Igbo-Ukwu
The staff heads and their ornaments, as well as the fan-handles are indicative of the political-religious power held by highly ranked title-holders in igbo-land, where staffs called alo are still carried, they serve as a badge of office and offered a form of "diplomatic immunity" for the title holders.
The depictions of grasshoppers and beetles is suggestive of the belief that the Eze Nri’s ability to direct the forces of nature for the benefit of the society, he could thus control the activities of creatures such as grasshoppers, locusts, flies, birds, yam-beetles, all to the advantage of his people.
Animals in Igbo-Ukwu Art
The appearance of naturalistic and stylized depictions of animals in the Igbo Ukwu artworks is tied with their use in the iconography of power in which the symbolic representations of leadership took on attributes of elephants, horses, rams, leopards, snails, tortoises, flies, as recounted in the folktales that occur in igboland.
Serpentine figures in particular are ubiquitous in Igbo Ukwu art with snake ornaments made of pure copper, were often used to decorate ceremonial staffs. The snake depicted maybe the python (eke), it is believed to be the messenger of the earth deity (ala), and of which they are taboos across igbobland against killing them.
Another object indicating iconography of power was a remarkably preserved bronze hilt in the form of a horseman set on decorated pommel decorated in a grass-weave pattern surmounted by round bosses. This is also one of the oldest equestrian figures in west Africa's forest region, where horses were mostly used for ceremonial display.
Shell Vessel with Leopard from Igbo-Ukwu
Trade and Chronology
The volume, complexity, and richness of the Igbo Ukwu art collection which included imported glass beads, suggest that the already established iron-age agricultural community of the Nri kingdom, received a further impetus of wealth accumulation and display in the late first millennium through its engagement in regional trade routes.
Over 165,000 glass and carnelian beads were found at Igbo-Ukwu; the quantity of beads contributes to the site's uniqueness in Western African archaeology. Archaeologists are able to use the morphology and chemical composition of the beads as insight into Igbo-Ukwu participation in long-distance trade networks and a general chronology of interaction.
These were likely made from glass produced in Mesopotamia and eastern regions of Iran, and likely moved along the eastern Niger corridor route by the ninth or tenth centuries. Demand for a variety of adornment that included imported glass beads was created by their use in the title-taking ceremony for Ozo title-holders which also involves their adornment with semi-precious carnelian stones and glass beads, that are also worn by wealthy individuals in igbo-land to symbolize their social status.
The most likely trade item exchanged from Igbo Ukwu region was ivory. Igbo Ukwu is ideally situated for obtaining elephant ivory within the West African forest zone, which was funneled through the trading cities of the Sahel, such as Gao, which is the nearest of the major cities, and whose material culture included glass beads similar to Igbo Ukwu, albeit at at slightly later date in the 11th century.
Using radiocarbon dating, Shaw concluded that the bronzes, beads, pottery, and burial were from the 9th to 11th century C.E. While some scholars have questioned Shaw’s conclusions, arguing for a somewhat later date in the 15th century C.E., the earlier dates are widely accepted today. Significantly, this conclusion means that the artists of Igbo-Ukwu created the earliest known examples of cast bronze objects in West Africa.
Here is a table summarizing the key aspects of the Igbo-Ukwu art tradition:
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Location | Igbo-Ukwu, Anambra State, Nigeria |
| Culture | Nri-Igbo |
| Time Period | 9th - 11th Century CE |
| Key Discoveries | Bronze castings, glass beads, pottery, burial sites |
| Artistic Techniques | Lost wax casting (possibly with latex), smithing, chasing |
| Raw Materials | Local copper, lead, tin; imported glass beads |
| Symbolism | Power, authority, religious beliefs, animal iconography |
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